Search results for: "Concentration"

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  2. Equanimity
     … And then, based both on insight and on concentration, you continue to develop the path, fabricating the path, using whatever further concentration and insights you can develop. First you pry away any distractions from the mind that would pull you out of concentration, and then you apply the same analysis to the concentration itself. There’s an interesting passage in the Canon where the … 
  3. Imperturbable
     … They didn’t think that if he was in that concentration he’d be able to recognize those things, so they went to complain to the Buddha. And the Buddha said, “Actually, there is that concentration. It wasn’t quite pure, but that does count as the imperturbable concentration.” Now, imperturbable concentration is pretty advanced—at least the fourth jhana, and some of the … 
  4. Analyzing Anger
     … We use the concentration as a basis, we use our thoughts of goodwill, as I said, as a baseline, and our concentration as a basis so that you can watch the mind carefully and see the subtle movements inside the mind. For the time being, you don’t turn this analysis on the concentration. In the Canon, the Buddha talks about seeing the five … 
  5. Undefeated Goodwill
     … This shows the connection that the Buddha often talks about between right resolve and right concentration. As he says, when you’re getting the mind into right concentration, you’re secluded from sensuality, you’re secluded from unskillful mental qualities. In other words, you’ve successfully acted on your right resolves—which are to resolve on renunciation, resolve on non-ill will, resolve on … 
  6. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
     … In fact, of the different factors of the path, right concentration is the one where you’re going to be looking at the five aggregates very carefully, because you’re feeding on them. The Buddha compares concentration to the food for the path. So as you fix this food and enjoy it, you really got to get hands-on experience with these activities of … 
  7. Standing Where the Buddha Stood
     … Once he had stabilized his mind in good, solid, strong states of concentration, he directed it to insight — which means that the insights he got were the way experience looks from the point of view of someone in good, strong concentration. That’s where all the terms, all the ideas and concepts come from. So if you want to understand the ideas and concepts … 
  8. The Battle of Your Selves
    We sit here trying to get the mind into concentration, to get it focused on the breath, and all of a sudden we find it someplace else. By that I mean without any sense that we intended to go someplace else, it’s just that we’re there. This is a good lesson in how your self is pretty arbitrary, and how there are … 
  9. Balancing the Bases for Concentration
     … The more refreshing the breath, the more blissful the breath, then the easier it will be for the mind to settle in, and the concentration can start doing its work. Concentration is a really important part of the path that’s often overlooked. It’s the part of the path that heals the mind. Many times you come to meditation with a sense of … 
  10. Distraction & Drowsiness
     … If your thinking spins off onto other topics, you’re going to get dizzy—in other words, your concentration is not going to get solid. But if you hold on to the breath and think about the breath for a while, you actually get deeper and deeper into concentration. This sort of evaluation is not just one step to get through as quickly as … 
  11. Creating a World of Concentration
     … We’re trying to bring into being a state of concentration to begin with, and it requires two qualities of mind—one is serenity and the other is insight—to try to calm the body down, calm the mind down. There are basically two ways of doing this. One is just to give the mind something to focus on that it likes, and it … 
  12. Don’t Leak Out Your Ears & Eyes
     … This destroys our concentration. And it’s hard to tell which happens first, whether the concentration is destroyed first or the hunger comes first. You’ve got to learn how to combine your meditation with restraint of the senses. Now, restraint of the senses works when you have a good sense of being mindful of the body. This can either be mindful of the … 
  13. Equanimity & Exertion
     … Sometimes you hear about the dangers of concentration, but the Buddha never talked in those terms. The one danger he mentioned is that you get good at it and then you don’t move on to use the concentration for gaining insight. But there’s nothing wrong with getting good at the concentration. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary. He says that without that … 
  14. To Be Debt Free
     … Then there’s the issue of respect for the Triple Training and respect for concentration. It’s worth noting that concentration is actually part of the Triple Training. The Triple Training is training in heightened virtue, what’s called heightened mind—which is basically the mind in right concentration—and then heightened discernment. But then, in the verse, the Buddha goes back and emphasizes … 
  15. Metacognition
     … When the Buddha gives his examples for the kind of discernment that develops out of concentration, he says that first you’ve got to get really good at the concentration. So let the mind mature. Then, when it’s mature, you can observe it. Here again, metacognition: You step back a bit and you notice how the concentration is fabricated, how it’s composed … 
  16. Greed & Distress with Reference to the World
    The Buddha’s formula for right mindfulness contains his instructions on how to get the mind into right concentration, and it contains two verbs. In other words, there are two activities that we do. One is dwelling. The word viharati, to dwell, can also mean to keep doing something. Here we dwell with the breath, the body in and of itself, just as you … 
  17. Intelligent Effort
     … So you have to be careful about what you take in, because it can destroy good states of concentration. Remember, concentration is something put together. It’s fabricated. Its nature is to slip away. So we have to be constantly shoring it up, protecting it. Have a sense of its value. Ajaan Lee’s image is of a dish of food. You want to … 
  18. Appropriate Attention
     … We work with the breath, we work on getting the mind into concentration to make it as constant as possible. We look at the distractions that would pull us away. We want to see that they’re very inconstant and unreliable in comparison to concentration. But as you get deeper and deeper into the concentration, you see that even levels of right concentration that … 
  19. Dangers Outside & In
     … Then you get the mind into concentration because the mind needs food, and if it doesn’t have the food of the pleasure of concentration, it’s going to go feeding off other things. This is when you learn that you can’t really trust yourself. Often, when the food that you can get through virtuous behavior isn’t readily available, a lot of … 
  20. All Eye
    All Eye December 11, 2022 When the Buddha defines concentration, or samadhi, he defines it as cittass’ekaggata. Sometimes that term is translated as one-pointedness of mind. Eka would be one, and agga is often thought to mean point, but agga doesn’t mean point. It means the summit of something, like the ridge on a roof or the summit of a mountain … 
  21. The Equanimity that Doesn’t Give Up
     … So as the concentration develops, you can ask yourself, “What here in the concentration is a disturbance? What can I let go?” That lightens the burden of the concentration and actually makes it more solid once you’ve let it go. That way you’ve got concentration working together with discernment. All of these qualities—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment—are strengths. They … 
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